


Rebirth in old soil

by MorteMistrata



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers
Genre: Angst, ENJOY IT, M/M, Pain, is the sound of your heart breaking, necrobot, that sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 05:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13606605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorteMistrata/pseuds/MorteMistrata
Summary: Megatron's perception shifts whilst being a part of the Lost Light's crew. He begins to see Rodimus in a different light.





	Rebirth in old soil

1.

 

“Kill me now.”

 

“Say that in front of the crew and you may get your wish.” Ultra Magnus replies dryly. The two of them watch as Rodimus finishes telling Thunderclash his tale of how they’d killed the personality ticks, with an extended emphasis on Rodimus’ role. He gestures wildly as he tells his story, his optics glimmering with every embellished detail. “I’d thought that you were used to his...tendencies by now.”

 

Megatron crosses his arms, and forces himself to look away. “As did I.”

 

Ultra Magnus offers him a pat on the back. “It’ll go away soon enough, I’m sure. While Rodimus can be surprising in his depth at times, his everyday nature will eventually win out, and you’ll get annoyed with him again.”

 

Megatron has been through millions of years of war, has lived with Starscream for most of that. At this point, he practically lives in a state of constant annoyance. He doubts that that alone will be enough to deter this stupid crush, but he doesn't mention that to Magnus. Whatever frail resemblance of friendship they currently possess is not enough to compel him to be so entirely truthful.

 

Rodimus rubs it in Thunderclash’s face, although the ‘Greatest Autobot ever’ doesn’t seem to notice the co-captain’s bragging tone. Megatron knows very well how much Thunderclash’s presence annoys Rodimus, and yet, here he is, offering him a spot in his crew. It takes a maturity that Megatron did not think he had to do so, and in a small way, makes him feel proud of Rodimus for being able to overcome his petty jealousies. 

 

He glances over at Megatron, a fiendish grin spreading across his face. “Of course, you’ll have to deal with having  _ him  _ as your higher-up. Optimus’ choice. Not mine.” Thunderclash is nice enough to not follow Rodimus’ gaze; not that he needs to. Everyone knows why he’s there, and who placed him there. “Though having him on-board isn’t nearly as horrible as one would assume having a ex-warlord on board would be.” Rodimus meets Megatron’s optics, and winks. 

 

He...isn’t exactly sure what to make of that. Is Rodimus jesting with him? What that his attempt at making light of the situation?

 

He glances over at Ultra Magnus, but he is only able to offer a shrug. “I am not well versed in the nuances of humor. Although i have known and worked with Rodimus for a while, I am not quite sure how to interpret that.”

 

“I didn’t ask you to.” Megatron snaps, annoyed that Magus would presume his ignorance of the interaction. However, seeing as he really doesn’t know what to make of it, he immediately feels regret at his outburst. “Sorry, Ultra Magnus. I did not mean to speak to you so harshly. I am...a little inexperienced with all of,” He gestures vaguely to the ship around them. “ _ This. _ ”

 

“Aren’t we all?” Magnus replies, in a tone that if it weren’t  _ him  _ it was directed at, might be taken as empathizing.

  
  
  


Someone has it out for him. 

 

That’s not specific enough.

 

Everyone is out to get him; His Deceptions have rejected him as surely as he rejected their cause, and the Autobots have millions of years of war to blame him for; Any neutrals he may come across would hate him just on principle. But more specifically, someone  _ here _ on the  _ Lost Light _ is out to sabotague his poetry reading. 

 

He hadn’t told anyone about it, besides mentioning it during a meeting to Rodimus, and Ultra Magnus. It had been a half-hearted attempt at getting permission, as it wasn’t in his nature to work under someone else’s jursidiction. Still, this was Rodimus’ ship, before Megatron was shoved on board, and he tries to make him feel like the ship is still under his control. Sometimes. He isn’t sure who spread the word, but it’s obviously been told around the ship, as the crowds have once more returned to Swerve’s for their nightly drinks. 

 

There are people here on the Lost Light who treat him cordially, who show up to his philosopy and history lessons and only eye him with disgust occasionally, when they think he is not looking. They wouldn’t go so far as to support him against their comrades, but he had expected some of them to show up. He’d known better than to expect a crowd, but he  _ had  _ expected an audience. 

 

Instead, he has Mirage, who is cleaning up the bar, and watching him cautiously through the wet reflection of the counter, and Hound, who is so overcharged out of his mind, that he hasn’t even noticed the lack of Autobots around him. But no one had listened to him when he was just a miner of Tarn, an underground poet breaking the unspoken rules of the era; you are not meant to  _ think,  _ and thus you cannot create.

 

Undeterred, he continues to read,

 

“Through empty spirals,

Broken optics glare

For who amongst them has clean hands?

 

Naught their savior

Naught their God

Their messiah has fallen

Into ruin and rust,”

 

The door slides open, and Rodimus steps inside, a smirk still lingering on his lips from the conversation left outside the door. He stays close to it, and leans against the wall, optics drifting across the bar. It is only when he realizes that the four of them are all that’s there, that he relaxes, and turns his attention to Megatron. His optics flare as his fingers tap the beat on his arm. 

 

Megatron pauses for only an instant, and hides it as an intentional skip of the beat. 

 

“The cold, blue stars

Fill their gaping sockets

With light the ancients witnessed.

 

Who might see us

And withhold the sight

Of our dying sparks?

 

Glimmer, and shine and die

To what end?

Whom witnesses our fickle lives,

But dead gods and broken corpses?”

 

He has more, much more, but he doesn’t wish to bore his quiet audience, or scare them off with too much figurative language. His words are purple and fluffy, so unlike the speeches and essays he had written before the war; they are much closer to the subject matter he had always wanted to cover: love, and romance, and the tragedy of their immortal bodies and lack of capacity. He sets the datapad down on the podium, and utters and quiet, “Thank you.” 

 

Hound rouses himself long enough to give three offbeat claps, and Mirage nods his approval. In the silence that follows, he and Rodimus lock optics.

 

Rodimus is one of the loudest protesters of his presence on the ship, and distrusts him more than Ultra Magus does, and yet, when he snaps, the sound light and careful, it’s more meaningful than the crowds that used to follow his war-words were. The corner of his mouth lifts in a quiet attempt of a smile, and Rodimus leaves as quietly as he came.

  
  


3.

 

In a decisive moment millions of years ago, Megatron decided that the end justifies the means, no matter the methods used. If people had to die for peace, if he had to kill for it, had to drench his hands in energon to force change to come, so be it. By that law, he had seen planets ravaged to the ground by mere skirmishes, seen the corpses strewn across their ruined landscape like they had grown there, and read the reports, the oh-so-many reports, but it had never truly sank in until now. 

 

While the others explore the planet in search of the statues of their friends, or frolic around, or do whatever it is little Autobots do when they take a detour that isn’t trying to kill them, Megatron sits there among his flowers and realizes. Ravage is trying to engage him in conversation, but it’s like his processor is broken. He has killed more than he can count. He tries to imagine how the bodies stack up, how much energon he’d spill, but he can’t. His processor is unable to even conceptualize the body count. Whereas it had all made so much sense before, how it had all seemed worth it, now he can only see the damage of his mistakes. 

 

Why would he allow this to happen? How could he have ordered this many deaths, snuffed this many sparks without realizing it? Did the war consume him for that long? Was the transformation from poet miner to warlord so absolute that he forgot to  _ care _ ? He has an urge to look for Optimus’ statue, to prove to himself that he isn't alone in this, because surely Optimus must’ve killed just as many Decepticons, just as many in their haste, but he won't. He is a warmonger, and these lives were taken because of  _ him. _

 

It is a fact that he must accept.

 

Megatron finds it hard to accept. It forces him to reexamine every action he’s ever taken, every order he’s ever given, and he doesn’t move all the while. Eventally, Ravage leaves him, and the sun begins to set. It is around that time that Rodimus comes for him. 

 

He crosses his arms and leans against the base of his statue, eying Megatron with a mix of pity and contempt, and something else that he suspects is empathy. 

 

“This is why everyone hates you.” Rodimus says casually, as if Megatron did not understand the basis of the hate of their crew. “There are twelve sparks in every flower, and every one of those sparks was someone, and that someone was missed.”

 

“I know.”

 

Rodimus watches him, unsatisfied with his response. “I don’t think you do. So just humor me, alright? The Necrobot has a scanner. He catalogs all of this, every name, every death date,  _ everything _ .” Rodimus produces the scanner, and hands it to him. Megatron doesn't want to hold it, but he’s done plenty of things that he doesn't like, and after all, the ends justify the means, he tells himself with a scowl. “Just scan one, and tell me if you recognize anyone.”

 

Megatron scans the flower beside his foot, and reads the list as it uploads on the screen. 

 

“Overbite,

Deadwing,

Leadfoot,

Healivac,

Medpak,

Deathbringer,

Volumocity,

Knifesetter,

Whoosh, 

Curricula,

Melody.”

 

“Recognize anyone?”

 

“No.” Megatron squints. One or two sound familiar, but not enough for him to bring their faces to mind, to remember who they were and what they sounded like. 

 

“Whoosh was a racer. He died in the attack of Six Lasers over Cybertron. He’d just lost to Blurr, and tried to drown his pain in thrill rides and energon. When you bombed it, he was on the Helix coaster. He was badly burned, almost melted, but managed to save two others before dying.” Rodimus reads it like a ship manifest; without inflection or tone. He vents. “Melody was a singer. He performed for Sentinel, and many of the council members. During one of your mass assasinations, a spare bullet took him out, and he died, mid-song. Healivac-”

 

“I get it.” Megatron says, his voice low and quiet. Hearing about these people, he deserves the discomfort, he does, but he needs Rodimus to know that he understands. It means more to him than anything that Rodimus knows. “I killed them. I caused them to die and hurt the ones they loved because of it. I’m a murderer. I get it.”

 

“We’re all murderers. That doesn’t make you anyone special. The impartiality does.” Rodimus gestures to the field around them. The flowers glitter beautifully in the dying light. “You don’t remember who these people were. You probably ordered the bombings that killed them, or the attacks that they got caught up in, but you don’t remember them.”

 

“Do you remember all that you’ve killed?”

 

Rodimus shakes his head, and studies the glimmering statue. It has a surprising likeness to Megatron as he currently is, as if someone had scanned his form and sent it here. Ah, but that is a mystery for another day. “No, but I try. And that’s the difference.” He places a hand on Megatron’s shoulder. “A lot of people hate you for this.  _ I  _ hate you for this. But I understand why it happened. I can see why people followed you. Ask me a day before we launched, and I would’ve said it was impossible for you to make it this far. But this,” His hand brushes against Megatron’s chest, where his symbol sits. Where Bumblebee’s symbol sits. “This proves that all isn't lost. If  _ you _ can change, we all can.”

 

Megatron is quiet for a moment. Then he smiles, something small and rarely used anymore. “I can see why they follow you. You would’ve made a real Prime. A good one.” Better than Optimus even. 

 

Rodimus rolls his optics, and crosses his arms once more. “What? It wasn't obvious until now?”

 

“I suppose that there is more to you than meets the eye.” Megatron adds with a chuckle. How cliche of him.

 

When they return to the Lost Light, he still feels the weight of all he has done settle around him like a lead-filled cloud, but it does not crush him like it had in the field of the flowers. Instead, it merely keeps him tethered, like a balloon, to the ground beneath him. He imagines that if that guilt weren’t there, he might find it in himself to pursue this sudden feeling, this emotion that Rodimus seems to call out in him, and that, that is the scariest notion of all.

 

4.

 

Who has he loved this dearly since Terminus? 

 

He can count them on one hand.

 

Impactor, Orion, Soundwave. But Soundwave’s love had been more akin to hero worship than real love, and whatever he and Impactor had was never very healthy, and Orion, he had loved him as best he could, but he had been clueless to the sins of the society around them, and had opened his optics far too late, and  _ that  _ had turned out to be the biggest heartbreak of all.

 

But this is different. 

 

Of the Primes that corrupted the lineage of Primus, that spoiled and ruined that name, Rodimus was not one of them. He believed, really believed in the Circle of light, and the Guiding Hand. He believed in everything he did, and it was because of that belief that Megatron knew that this love was different. It was something more than co-dependency. It was something more than mere respect. Rodimus believed in this, and because of that, Megatron did too.

 

How scary it was to love, and love again.


End file.
